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Meghalaya CM releases policy document on jackfruit mission

| Saturday | 7th July, 2018

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SHILLONG: Meghalaya Chief Minister Conrad K Sangma on Friday released the policy document of the five year jackfruit mission.The chief minister launched the draft policy for the mission at the jackfruit festival here and the mission is likely to be launched before Independence Day this year.The mission aims to generate employment opportunities for over 80,000 farmers.Meghalaya additional chief secretary K N Kumar said the Rs 80 crore jackfruit mission has set a target of reaching out and impacting over 82,000 farmers, 50 small and medium enterprises and about 200 nano enterprises the state in the next five year.Of the Rs 80 crore, Rs 42.6 crore will be sourced from the Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture (MIDH)and Rs 6.3 crore from the Union Ministry of Food Processing Industries and Rs 30.2 crore from the state government as support funds.According to the policy document, the jackfruit mission will demonstrate the feasibility of turning a long ignored low input, low cost natural resource of the state into a high value product capable of sustaining a long line of enterprises in the communityKumar said that roughly 75 per cent of the jackfruit produced in the state is wasted resulting in a vast economic waste and hoped that through the mission mode intervention, value addition of the fruit will result in generation of negligible wastes.Kumar, under whose supervision the mission is launched, estimated that there are at least one million jackfruit trees in the state.He estimated that each tree can generate an average income of Rs 5000 considering that each fruit tree can bear 200 fruits on an average.Stating that the vegan market will be especially attracted to jackfruit as it is truly organic and natural, Kumar said the market is increasing by about 600 per cent in the US, 350 per cent in the UK in the past decade and about 17 per cent annually in China.At the jackfruit festival, on display are various value added jackfruit products which include jackfruit pickles, chips, juice, wines, biscuits, cakes and curry besides other culinary items.

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